Thread: external hard drive broken

I dropped my external hard drive and now I can't access it. When I plug it into my computer, it does not read the disc.



Besides taking it to a shop, is there any other way to recover my files?? Are there any data recovery software I can download for free or find in a particular tracker?

I have a 2tb Western Digital Element external hard drive.

If your PC can't read it, software isn't going to help. Sounds like that's a hardware issue so you'll need to get it looked at.

Have you tried the freeze trick? I had to use it a couple of times and it worked for me.

I had Seagate Barracudas, I should of known that I would have to do this.


Here is a link that I used:
Save a Failed Hard Drive in Your Freezer, Redux

Originally Posted by stooki

I dropped my external hard drive and now I can't access it. When I plug it into my computer, it does not read the disc.

Besides taking it to a shop, is there any other way to recover my files?? Are there any data recovery software I can download for free or find in a particular tracker?

Several things here:

1. My condolences. Your data is likely *gone*

2. Take this as a learning experience. If your data has any value to you, then back it up next time. If you had a backup, you wouldn't be asking about data recovery, right? Painful data loss is one the few things that actually spurs people to start doing backups.

3. If the data is truly important (hint: is your life going to be a living hell without it?), then give serious consideration to having the data professionally recovered. This is an expensive proposition and usually costs more than $1K to undertake. Realize that anything that you attempt is much more likely to mess things up & render the data truly unrecoverable than actually succeed.

4. If professional recovery is not an option and you feel that you have nothing to lose, then continue reading to see if a DIY attempt at data recovery is worth trying.


DIY data recovery for the ambitious (desperate) hobbyist:
This is a crash course for those who have nothing to lose. Proceed at your own risk. This is slim hope to curses and tears territory. Also this post is only a starting point. It is not a step by step, foolproof guide. I can answer some questions, but I do not have the free time to guide you through the process in great detail.

We have to differentiate between data errors, which is what most data recovery software seeks to fix. And physical or hardware faults, which are largely beyond the reach of software solutions. If you dropped a running hard drive onto a hard surface, the prognosis is poor. A hard impact likely warped the drive platter(s) which is essentially unrecoverable. Or trashed the drive heads which are exceedingly difficult for the non-professional to replace.

Your real hope (& it's frankly unlikely) is that the heads only had a soft crash, where the heads and platter are still operational and the damage is limited to a few sectors on the platter. This is actually physical damage, but as long as the drive heads can still read the rest of the platter, we are simply treating the damaged areas as inaccessible and replacing the damaged OS files that resided there. I will touch upon head replacement as well, but it's well beyond the capability of all but the most ambitious techies.

First you need some information about the drive. If the drive can't communicate with your computer at all.. then most of your options just evaporated. Modern drives have a built in SMART diagnostic. Utilities such as hdsentinel or hddscan will usually lend some insight as to the drive condition.

Keep in mind that you want the drive powered up a minimal amount of time to check whether it boots up and to check the SMART status. If the drive is physically damaged, just being powered up could be degrading the drive and data. With that in mind, once it appears that the drive for the moment at least, can read and write data for the most part, then you want to 'image' the data onto a healthy drive ASAP before trying to recover data in earnest. Imaging is simply making an exact copy of the data as it currently sits on the drive.

Never mind if your OS thinks that the drive is accessible or bootable. Does your computer BIOS recognize that the drive is initialized (correctly identify the drive model + capacity)? Or can an utility retrieve a valid SMART status? If so, then you need to attempt to image it immediately. r-studio is a good program to clone (image) the drive and of course you will need a healthy + empty drive to copy the contents to as well. You should be able to image drive with the trial version of the program. Once you have an image, then use getdataback to see if data recovery is viable. Getdataback comes in ntfs and fat (filesystem) versions. So use the appropriate version for your drive and you will have to obtain a license to actually save recovered data. But the trial version is fully functional except for the save recovered files function.

That was the easy part. If your drive shows signs of being physically unbalanced e.g. bad vibration, wobbles, makes 'buzzing' noises.. then the platters are warped. Game over. Sorry. If it runs smoothly but the drive is not communicative.. try taking the drive out of the external case and see if it will talk to a desktop computer (damaged external interface). If not, then you likely have damaged heads. This can be repaired.. but it's not an easy exercise and impractical unless you are up for an ambitious challenge. You would need to get another drive of the same model to source replacement heads from, construct a miniature clean room (glove box with laminar flow fans) and swap some delicate and spring loaded parts from the working drive to yours. Not an easy task by any measure. It's likely not worth your time to attempt. But it is possible. I've done it twice. Here are a few youtube videos to get you started down that path if you are really ambitious.


An introduction to platter head replacement (youtube)

video 1 .. video 2 .. video 3

Anecdotal advice along the lines of put the drive in the freezer have a fleeting grain of truth to them. But are really clumsy and seldom successful attempts to cope with drive bearing failure, speed and head alignment problems. This has potential to cause further damage, usually doesn't work and should only be undertaken as an absolute last resort.

A good support forum for data recovery is hddguru. This forum is really intended for professionals and advanced hobbyists. So don't expect a lot of hand holding there and asking an excessive number of stupid questions will likely see your query fall into the abyss. If you have a good attitude though, it's a valuable resource.

HTH


.

When you connect your hard drive can you hear it spin up?
Does power seem to be going to it?
Is the case itself broken?
If you shake it does something rattle inside?

The data still exists on the discs inside it, however it depends what you broke in it. If the jolt just ripped a cable off or made the usb connection loose its fixable and you can then just plug it in and grab all the data off it. If it detects the harddrive and nothing is on it, dont worry, thats when the data recovery software can come in to save the day. However if your OS and BIOS arent even detecting it at all then you are beyond the help of mere software.

Was anything important on the hard drive? Sometimes its easier to just get it from scratch rather than go through all the hours and effort to recover the data.
Like Copper says, this should be a wake up call for you to now backup your data, I used to be the same way until it happened to me! :P